Product Lifecycle Management (PLM): Critical Issues and Challenges in Implementation - Information Technology and Product Development - page 81

highly educated, complex problem solvers are critically important to the success of
the PLM implementation and yet can also become one of the larger barriers to the
project success - an interesting dichotomy to say the least.
The Product Engineer is the primary end user of the PLM solution and as a result
is the indispensable contributor to the PLM implementation team. But including end
users (such as product engineers) on IT implementation core teams is nothing new.
What is unique to PLM implementations is that in many companies these senior
individuals actually make up the vast majority of the implementation team. These
engineers need to participate - with a sizable number of representatives - in the
tactical requirements definition, design, and testing project activities or the delivered
solution will not address the engineering needs.
Because of where the ownership of the PLM implementation resides, these
projects have a significantly high number of senior project contributors as com-
pared to a more traditional IT application implementation project. For example,
compare the typical roles of senior engineers (end users) in a PLM effort against
those normally found on an ERP implementation team.
As Fig. 5.1 shows, the number of senior influential people on a PLM project
team tends to be much greater than that found in an ERP project team. This is
primarily due to the fact that in most engineering-oriented companies (which have
traditionally taken the lead in PLM implementations), there is a higher proportion of
engineers in the senior management. This is a huge challenge for the PLM project's
day-to-day leadership. For example, it is not unusual for the project leader to occupy
a lower role in the corporate organizational hierarchy than many of the key engineer
contributors. As a result, the team dynamics can be very intense and decision making
can be wrought with political overtones and convoluted logic. Indeed, PLM project
teams often struggle in making critical decisions, especially those requiring any sort
of compromise.

Illustration—Senior PLM Contributors

EVP

VP

Senior
Fellow
Engineer/
Director

PLM

OPS

ERP

Number of
People Involved

Fig. 5.1 Role of engineers in PLM and ERP implementations